Liberal Arts Universities in the Republic of Vietnam–Part 2: Universities Independent from the State

While South Vietnam possessed the necessary conditions to develop a liberal arts education, the true measure of this system was how southern universities adopted its spirit amid wartime. 

Following the 1958 National Education Congress, the South established three guiding principles for its education system: “humanism, national character, [and] liberal arts.” However, a slogan remains merely words unless it actively shapes classrooms, lecture halls, and university life. 

As the conflict intensified and American influence grew from the mid-1960s onward, this liberal arts spirit faced tests in two directions: expanding academic freedom and contributing to a nation at war.

Academic Freedom

In a 2025 study published in the British History of Education Society’s journal, History of Education, historian Hà Triệu Huy explores the South’s educational framework. 

As a lecturer at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Hồ Chí Minh City, Huy details this aspect in his article, “A New Higher Education Model in Nation-Building: The Republic of Vietnam’s Liberal Arts Education and Its Performances during the Vietnam War (1965–1975).” [1] 

He argues that the primary defining feature of liberal arts education at the university level in the Republic of Việt Nam was academic freedom. [2]

This freedom included not only a professor’s right to speak freely at the lectern but also the university’s right to create a relatively independent teaching environment that encouraged lecturers to choose materials from diverse sources. [3] 

Furthermore, academic freedom meant cultivating critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills, which empowered students to question government policies and social issues. [4] 

This approach directly connects “liberal arts” to “humanism” within the educational philosophy of the South. If individuals are the center of education, they must be treated as subjects with dignity and reason, fully capable of choice, and entitled to debate and form their own views. [5] 

Freedom in Wartime

During the war with the North, academic freedom in the South carried distinct political weight. The Republic of Vietnam sought to use liberal arts education to build a democratic university system that contrasted with the North’s rigid, authoritarian framework. [6] 

However, this strategy exposed underlying tension: while the regime required academic freedom to validate its open society, a government at war could never fully reconcile itself with that freedom.

As physical hubs where students gathered, books circulated, and ideas traveled faster than administrative decrees, campuses naturally became centers for political dissatisfaction, student movements, and demonstrations. 

Universities served as both a source of hope and anxiety for an administration navigating war, military coups, political crises, Buddhist movements, anti-war protests, urban communist activities, and American pressure.

This environment created the defining contradiction of wartime academic education: the state required free institutions to train intellectuals and display democratic credentials, yet it feared those exact spaces would devolve into hubs of political instability or communist propaganda. [7]

Southern educators were acutely aware of this divide. Some argued that universities must remain vibrant centers for creativity, global knowledge, and critical dialogue, giving students the tools to address the nation’s major questions. [8] 

Others feared that academic freedom would be weaponized politically, reflecting the government’s deep-seated anxiety over campuses turning into communist recruitment centers or catalysts for wider turmoil. [9]

While these wartime fears were understandable, they ensured that academic freedom in the South never mirrored Western French or American models. The state recognized student agency while desperately fearing a student political force it could not control. 

This ongoing friction inevitably brought university autonomy to the forefront of the debate.

Seeking Independence from the Regime

Because a university cannot truly embody the liberal arts while waiting for state directives, achieving autonomy became a goal for southern educators. They argued that institutions required self-determination over curricula, scholarship, research, teaching methods, and textbook selection. [10] 

To some extent, the Republic of Vietnam permitted this independence. By issuing policies that granted freedom to private universities, the state allowed these institutions to manage their own teaching programs and pedagogical approaches. [11] 

The rise of private universities across the South—including Minh Đức, Cao Đài, Hòa Hảo, Phương Nam, Cửu Long, and Tri Hành—demonstrates that higher education did not revolve around a single state center. Rather, it integrated participation from religious communities, social groups, localities, and private actors. 

Despite these advancements, Professor Lê Xuân Khoa, former Vice Minister of Education (1965) and Vice President of Saigon University (1974–1975), noted that universities never achieved full autonomy during this era. [12] 

The Ministry of Education maintained a heavy influence over the system of the Republic of Vietnam, with the Minister making the ultimate decisions on major issues while university presidents largely served to implement them. [13] 

Nevertheless, the Ministry generally refrained from direct intervention regarding daily curricula, examinations, and teaching. Yet, academic freedom represents only half of the story. The other half is practicality.

Practicality

Focusing solely on freedom risks misunderstanding liberal arts education as mere bookish learning detached from concrete social needs. However, as the study by Hà Triệu Huy demonstrates, liberal arts education in the Republic of Vietnam avoided this pitfall. 

As American influence became more pronounced from the mid-1960s onward, southern liberal arts education aligned more closely with the demands of everyday life. [14] 

The prolonged war caused constant social upheaval, generating an urgent need for personnel across the military, the bureaucracy, and the broader economy. Localities desperately needed teachers, agricultural specialists, technical staff, businesspeople, healthcare workers, and capable administrators. 

Under these pressing circumstances, universities could no longer afford to train a purely academic intelligentsia. Institutions were forced to address practical outcomes, focusing on post-graduation employment and societal contribution—a shift best exemplified by the establishment and development of the South’s three largest universities.

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Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on July 10, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine owns the copyright for this English translation.